


come sit at my table

by nefertiti



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Belligerent Sexual Tension, Distrust, F/F, Prompt Fic, Tumblr Prompt, Uneasy Allies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-03
Updated: 2018-07-03
Packaged: 2019-06-04 20:02:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,243
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15154580
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nefertiti/pseuds/nefertiti
Summary: The girl seemed too old for her apparent youth, like as she had lived for five hundred years. In that, Daenerys had seen a like spirit.





	come sit at my table

**Author's Note:**

> Written for asoiaf rarepairs prompt: Daenerys asks Arya to join her court in King's Landing

Flames of black drew nearer and nearer. Dany watched them with a cool eye. The dark tongues may sear her hair and kiss her skin but they would not consume her. No. She was the mistress of fire. The flames belonged to her alone. They were her. So they would rage and bloom and devour but harm her? No. They could not. Could they?

They licked closer and closer but the heat she expected did not come. Instead came a frigid cold. No, no, no, she thought. This was not right. The heat she knew well, but the cold? She could not move. The ice froze her flesh, her blood, her bones. She screamed soundlessly.

Dany awoke with a start. She was soaked with sweat, the wisps of silk covering her skin were damp. Breathing heavily she shook the sleeping girl next to her.

“Irri,” commanded Dany, grateful that her voice did not waver. “Fetch me the Stark girl.”

It was ill omened that she should dream of icy flames that crippled her. Everyone knew that dreams could be prophetic and hers more than most. It was the presence of the youngest Stark girl that brought forth these night terrors. She was sure of it. She had heard of the North; a drear and hard place filled with frozen, joyless men. Wildlings to hear her dead brother speak of it. And it was cold – knee deep snows and blizzards even in the summer.

Yet Lady Arya seemed different. Not at all what she expected from a northerner, from a Stark. 

Dany had been surprised when the small, brown-haired girl approached her in Volantis, swearing her fealty and asking to return with her to the Seven Kingdoms. 

“I hope that you accept my pledge,” said the wolf girl. “If you do not want me I will find passage elsewhere.”

“The presumptuous girl,” Dany had seethed in her council room after hearing her petition. The wound of what was done to her kin still chafed. To accept a promise from a Stark. They who bent the knee once and betrayed later. 

“Not without cause if you remember, Your Grace.” Tyrion reminded her, his words slow and deliberate.

“I know their cause,” Dany responded, tartly. “Yet it was still betrayal. She has traitor’s blood. How can I trust her?”

“The same way you trust me,” Tyrion said, she could see the doubt in his sad eyes – eyes that were always so sad. “I hope I do have your trust, Your Grace.”

“Implicitly.” Dany said, softly. It had taken years but Tyrion had earned it. “A queen who trusts no one is as foolish as a queen who trusts everyone.”

She had said that once, to someone. A long time ago. A long, long time when she was a green girl who did not know how to be a queen. But she had been so oft betrayed since then. By her bear too. Yes, she remembered. It was Jorah she’d said those words to and it was Jorah too who fed her his poisoned wine of betrayal along with his honeyed words. She had forgiven him but she no longer trusted him. Was trust always going to be so hard for her?  

“I was once the fool who trusted none,” said Tyrion. “Until I met you, Your Grace but I do not say trust her just yet. I knew her bastard brother once and I was – am – wed to her sister. They were decent people but blood does not always tell.”

Daenerys grew thoughtful, “Then we should see what she is made of.”

“Flesh and bone and nerve like all the rest I’d assume,” japed Tyrion. “But yes, we shall see what else.”

She breathed deeply. She was the blood of the dragon and she had a dragon’s temper, she would have to gentle it now to see true. Dany did not want to return home to enemies everywhere she turned. Queen of a viper pit was not what she was meant for. She had wanted to be like Aegon the Conqueror; to take back the Seven Kingdoms – her Seven Kingdoms – with fire and blood. Meeting Tyrion Lannister had changed that dream. To hear of how ravaged her lands were, how miserable her people. Fire and blood were for her enemies not for innocents. Oh they will call her Daenerys the Conquerer but she would have to be Jaeherys the Conciliator come again then after. Fair and just. Beloved. To do so she would need allies. 

“I cannot trust her wholly Lord Tyrion,” said Dany. “But I will allow her to prove herself. As you have. If she proves to be an ally perhaps she can persuade her remaining kin to stand with me.” 

“House Stark, Targaryen and Lannister have been at war for years, Your Grace,” advised her lord Hand. “If we must be united by three exiles, then so be it.” 

And so the wolf girl boarded her ship. They did not spend much time together but Dany kept eyes on her at all times. She was naught like Dany thought she would be. A girl of seven and ten, not yet a woman but not at all a girl. She trained with Dany's Unsullied, played cyvasse with Tyrion, ate with servants, made ribald japes with sellswords and yet, though she spent her time around all of Dany’s people, she still seemed lonely, never smiling and always looking ahead at the body of black water searching for … for … something.

The wolf girl's calm and solemn demeanor had surprised Dany at first. The girl seemed too old for her apparent youth, like as she had lived for five hundred years. In that, Daenerys had seen a like spirit.

Her life with Drogo, her sun and stars, seemed a lifetime ago. She was a different woman then. So much had changed since those days when she had first felt the taste of power and respect. Walking through the Red Waste, blistered and starving had felt like decades, her sojourn in Mereen had felt like a hundred years. The moons spent in Vaes Dothrak was another hundred. She was an old crone now who had lived and lived and lived. She had only the deceptive appearance of youth.

Much like the girl now standing in front of her. 

Daenerys traced the rim of her goblet and looked at the girl steadily. Missandei had filled the cup with spiced wine before departing with a bow and Dany had but a delicate sip before putting it to the side. 

“You may sit,” said Dany, gesturing to the pillows piled near her bed. 

Arya Stark held her gaze, “I believe I shall stand. And ask why I was roused from sleep for an impromptu meeting.”

“Your Grace,” Dany corrected her, feeling a spike of irritation. “That is how you address me. Or did you not pledge to bid your queen. I am your queen am I not, my lady?”

“I’m not a lady,” said the wolf girl. “But you are my queen. Forgive me, Your Grace but I never managed to perform my courtesies as is proper.”

So she did not mean to insult. Or she did and Dany was being mocked. It was hard to tell, the wolf girl kept her face blank. Dany found her frustratingly difficult to read. Perhaps that was part of the intrigue. 

“I see,” said Dany. “An innocent slip then. See that you do not slip too often.”

“I will try, Your Grace.”

“You will. Now I must ask … you,” she stumbled, unclear on how to address a girl of noble birth who did not want to be called lady.

The wolf girl allowed her amusement at Daenerys’ predicament to show on her face which only further irritated Dany. She ought show her some respect. Dany had fought too hard and endured too much to be made a mock of by this Arya Stark. 

She was Daenerys Stormborn of House Targaryen, the Unburnt, breaker of chains, slayer of lies, khaleesi of the great grass sea and mother of dragons. She was … she was weary truth be told and in need of rest; she was beginning to regret summoning this irreverent girl to her cabin.

She wrapped herself in her titles finding her confidence once more. Slayer of lies. Yes, that she must now be. 

“What do you plan to do when you return to Westeros?” asked Dany, sharply. “Your lands are ruled by your bastard brother and I don’t see how he will give them up without a fight. I do not intend to use my children to free your seat so lord he may remain for now even if he chooses to call himself King. If you are unable to convince him to bend the knee I don’t see how much use you will be. I was told to give you a chance to prove yourself. You have committed no treason towards me in your many weeks on this ship and for that I am grateful but now I need to know what you can offer.”

Silence rang throughout the room after her declaration. It was harsh and she knew it. She could be kind. She oft was but weariness and the dragon's blood were too strong tonight and she needed an answer. Dany did not want to admit that she was nervous about a dream but she was. Thrice betrayed she would be. Thrice the prophecy had come to pass. She could not let there be a fourth due to her own foolishness. 

“Aegon Targaryen is no true Targaryen. A mummer’s dragon. You know this, and still you hope that he is your kin because you long for family.” 

It took all of Dany’s composure not to jump at the wolf girl’s words. How could she know of the Usurper? Her nephew? A liar? She did not know which he was but Daenerys knew that she had only discussed her doubts about him privvily with Lord Tyrion, Missandei, Grey Worm, and Ser Barristan. Certainly not with this Stark girl nor anywhere near her. 

“You spy on me?” asked Dany, iron in her voice. 

“You talk carelessly, Your Grace,” the girl replied calmly. “So do others on this ship.”

A lie. Her meetings were always well guarded. Dany had supped enough on betrayal and had since learned where caution and care were needed.

Yet the wolf girl continued spilling secrets, “Euron Greyjoy bids you wed him even though your dragons scorched his brother dead. Your dragons love you but they are unruly and you can barely control them. Loathe as you are to use that horn, you may well have to. Ser Jorah is mad with love for you and he yearns for you most days, other days it is his wife he longs for. He trusts Ser Barristan not and that mistrust is well returned. Two of your Second Sons were killed in a brawl tonight one boasted that he would have you in his bed come the week next and the other claimed that he would rape you first. They scuffled. The first was stabbed through the heart, the second in the leg. His wounds were not fatal but the poison I poured in them were.” 

Dany had grown colder the longer the wolf girl spoke but it was her last words that made the young queen shiver. The blood rushed from her head and she felt faint, though oddly enough, she did not feel unsafe. A frisson of excitement ran through her, a type she had not felt since Daario. Were she a reasonable woman she would search for a weapon to arm herself or call for one of her guards yet she did nothing of the sort. 

“You confess to spying and murder?” she asked faintly. 

“I confess to stopping those who would harm you,” said the wolf girl.

“I have enough guards who would do that for me,” declared Dany.

“You need better guards,” came her reply.

“And you propose yourself?”

“I do not,” the wolf girl shook her head. “A ghost is no guard. All I can offer you is counsel. Counsel and secrets. I can be a ghost in the walls. I can see when men are being false, I am good at seeing the truth hiding beneath the lies and the lies sleeping below the truth. That is all I am willing to offer.”

Dany appraised the girl standing before her. She was not so tall, an inch or two taller than Dany perhaps. Her long brown hair was bound tightly in a braid. She was pretty in her own way, with her long, solemn face. Her mummer’s composure only given way by the wild look about the eyes. Grey eyes. Sad eyes. Wolf eyes. 

Only now did she see the wolf girl for the true danger she posed yet she felt no fear. Was it the Targaryen madness that caused her to stand and walk towards the wolf girl? Or was it something else entirely? The pretender on Storm's End had by his side a spider who knew a person’s secret before it left their mouth. Should she not have a weapon of that sort too. 

She tossed the coin in the air and let it flip. 

“Arya of House Stark you are willing to kill for me, you are willing to pledge yourself to me. Are you also willing to sit on my council?”

**Author's Note:**

> I left it open-ended so you could decide if Arya wants the gig. As Arya’s pretty much been trained as a spy and not a guard/warrior, I will never understand the lack of Mistress of Whispers fic for her and Dany would definitely see that potential.


End file.
